Star Wars makeover expands at Disney’s Hollywood Studios

The joke going around the interwebz these days is that Disney’s Hollywood Studios new motto is “A salute to all movies, but mostly Star Wars.” With a significant portion of the park shortly due to go behind construction walls, even more Star Wars themed entertainment has just announced to keep guests engaged during their visit. So I can see how that meme got started.

The biggest announcement is a new Star Wars fireworks show that Disney promises will be “epic” and that it will “make theme park history.” Given how good the current Star Wars fireworks show is, you know it has to be something out of this world. And judging by the above concept art, it will be.

Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular will be a new generation of the current Star Wars-inspired fireworks show featuring digital projections and other effects. This epic nightly show, unprecedented in Disney’s Hollywood Studios history, will light up the sky with Star Wars-themed fireworks, lasers, light projections and other special effects combined with Star Wars-themed music and iconic characters and scenes from throughout the saga.

Through these state-of-the-art special effects that project onto the nearby Chinese Theatre and other surrounding buildings, guests will gaze at the twin suns of Tatooine, push through a field of battle droids, navigate through an asteroid field, soar down the trench of the Death Star and deliver the final blow to destroy Starkiller Base. The show, which will unfold through a series of acts, will be punctuated by a tower of fire as well as powerful spotlight beams that create lightsabers in the sky.

The Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular fireworks show will arrive sometime this summer. (Disney is building a whole new fireworks launch facility across World Drive from the park to accommodate the construction in the park.) But first we get two new Star Wars entertainment experiences arriving on April 4th.

Star Wars: A Galaxy Far, Far Away: This new live, stage show celebrates iconic moments from the Star Wars saga with live vignettes featuring popular Star Wars characters, such as Kylo Ren, Chewbacca, Darth Vader and Darth Maul. The show will take place multiple times each day at the Center Stage area near The Great Movie Ride.

Stormtroopers march: At various times each day, the menacing Captain Phasma will lead a squad of First Order stormtroopers as they march in formation from Star Wars Launch Bay to the Center Stage area in an intimidating demonstration of the First Order’s indomitable strength.

Once Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular does launch it means that if you stay for 5 nights at Walt Disney World, you can now potentially enjoy a different night time show on each night.

Although DHS needs all the capacity it can right now, the addition of another major show might also give Disney the opportunity to overhaul Fantastmic! if they so desire to. (Although I’m hearing that they want to use that stadium for a daytime show at some point if capacity issues get really bad.)

Related to the above: I believe I heard Disney testing some proof of concept ideas for the Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular fireworks show from the EPCOT parking lot a couple weeks ago. The show used snippets of dialog, sound effects from the movies (like Tie Fighter and X-Wing battles, a trench run on the Death Star, pod racing, and more), and John Williams classic score. I can totally see what I heard working with digital projection on and near the Chinese Theater facade. I wish I’d been smart enough to record it.

The concept art looks amazing, the optimal viewing area will be small, but it’s possible that DHS could do the Disneyland thing and do other digital projection in other areas of the park to spread out the crowds.

With all the other “Star Wars Awakens” experiences already open the Galaxy Far, Far Away is certainly a lot closer at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Do any of these new offerings make you want to visit DHS while construction for Toy Story Land and Star Wars Land is going on?

Between the construction at DHS, AK, and elsewhere I’ll be taking a few years break from Disney. Even Epcot is looking like a one day park lately. Hard to justify the ever increasing price when 2-3 parks aren’t any more than a day visit.

I have just started the 3rd year of my annual pass and I still can’t get enough of the parks. There is still so much to do and I am experiencing many of the things I have never done before. In my opinion, even with the construction, each park is worth multi-day visits, because you just can’t take in all that any one park has to offer in just one day.